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So far, Grace hadn’t spoken a single word, neither to her lover nor his wife. Indeed, Alaric feared she might have ceased breathing until he saw her breasts swell over the bodice of her gown as she inhaled raggedly. The increasing pallor of Grace’s cheeks warned him she was quickly reaching a stage where she might simply faint at the feet of the Earl and Countess of Redding.
“You are looking rather pale, my dear.” Lady Penelope voiced her concern before turning to her husband. “George, perhaps we might take Grace home in our carriage?”
Alaric’s jaw tensed in an effort to stop himself from snappingyour husband never arrives atGrace’s homein his own fucking carriage.
Alaric had watched as the other man arrived and left on the evenings Redding visited Grace, and he was always on foot. As Redding House and Grace’s far more modest home were on opposite sides of London, Redding no doubt instructed the driver of his carriage to wait for him some distance away from the home of his mistress.
“That will not be necessary when I have already offered to drive Grace home myself.” An offer Alaric was well aware Grace had not yet accepted.
Probably because seconds before he made the offer, he had shared the fantasy he had of her on her knees in front of him, sucking his cock!
The countess gave him a curious glance. “We do not often see you at the theater, Melborne.”
He gave a nod of acknowledgment. “You would not see me here this evening either if it had not been the only way in which I might enjoy Grace’s company.”
Lady Harper gave Grace a curious glance before remarking, “Your gown is beautiful, my dear. Is it—”
“I am afraid Iamfeeling slightly overwhelmed by the heat and the press of so many people.” Grace spoke softly and for the first time since this chance meeting with her lover and his wife. “If you will please excuse us…?” She looked gratefully at Alaric as he held out his arm so that she could place her lace-gloved hand upon it.
Alaric was instantly aware of the trembling of Grace’s fingers even through the barrier of his jacket and shirt. As if, despite appearing outwardly composed, Grace was slowly falling apart inside from the strain of this unexpected encounter.
A part of AlaricwantedGrace to break, if only so that he could be the one to put her pieces back together again.
Another part of him wished to take Redding apart for having put Grace in this unconscionable position in the first place.
Even though he knew Grace had to have agreed to their arrangement for it to exist in the first place.
Wild thoughts as to how that came about had taken up residence in Alaric’s mind this past week.
Grace did not appear to be the sort of avaricious woman one would expect to be a mistress. She also remained totally loyal to Redding and was not swayed by Alaric’s obviously greater wealth, power, and single status.
Alaric had spent hour upon hour this past week pondering as to why that might be. In the end, the only explanation he could conceive of was that Grace, the daughter and helpmate of a Devonshire vicar until a year ago, had been coerced into becoming Redding’s mistress. That the bastard had to be blackmailing her compliance, and perhaps using something he had learned about her or her father as leverage in that exchange.
That explanation was not substantiated by the report Alaric had finally received this afternoon from the man James Stanley had dispatched to Devon to investigate both Grace and her father.
That man had learned nothing that might place Grace or her father in a position to be blackmailed, and only one way in which the two might ever have met before Grace’s arrival in London a year ago.
It was that the Redding earldom had a small estate in Devon, situated not too many miles from where Grace’s father was vicar of his small parish.
Stanley’s man had ascertained that the Redding family had spent Christmas there the year before last, and that Grace had traveled to London just a month later.
There was no evidence that either Grace or her father had socially met any of the Redding family during that visit, but it was the only lead Alaric had as to how Grace and the earl could possibly have become acquainted before she came to London and Redding began to visit her at her home twice weekly.
“Of course you must go, my dear,” the countess warmly replied to Grace’s request to be excused. “And please do not trouble yourself to come to the orphanage tomorrow if you are still feeling unwell.”
Grace’s smile was strained. “Thank you.”
Alaric took that as his cue to escort Grace down the remainder of the stairs and outside to where his carriage stood waiting.
CHAPTERSEVEN
Grace felt only relief to be away from the theater crowd as she climbed inside and then sat in the sumptuous comfort of Melborne’s black lacquered carriage with its distinctive ducal seal painted on the door.
She was still shaking, inside and out, from coming face-to-face with George and his wife.
She knew the countess slightly because the other woman often visited and helped out at the same orphanage as Grace. She had never mentioned that acquaintance to George because it did not seem important in the grand scheme of things.
He had visited Grace at her home only yesterday evening, without so much as mentioning that the couple would be attending the theater this evening.
